[ April 19th, 2005 at 4:53 pm ]

The importance of yogurt in a young cat’s life cannot be underestimated. To Molly, yogurt is a treat possibly more delectable even than cheese. And so when I let her lick the aluminum lid of my raspberry Trader Joe’s yogurt container, she is always sure to eat it all up — to the last speck. The unfortunate thing about aluminum lids, though, is that their lightweight nature does not interface well with a cat’s rough tongue. This is why Molly ends up chasing the lid across the floor, each lick pushing it an inch or so away. In much the same way that a horse responds to a carrot dangled in front of its nose, Molly follows the yogurt with determination.

The obvious alternate yogurt-delivery method is the spoon, but one wonders how a cat might react to an attempt at spoonfeeding. Today I found out. I held a spoonful of my raspberry yogurt out to Molly, who bobbed her head around in the customary way, examining the spoon from every angle. (She decided to attack it from the right.) I was impressed to see her clean the spoon very efficiently, although I had to flip the utensil over to give her access to its underside as well. I would say that using this feeding method, Molly was able to consume twice the usual amount of yogurt in about a quarter of the usual time.